The U.S. government shutdown has put the brakes on the case against Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam's brother.

Rengan Rajaratnam was charged with insider-trading in March, accused of illegally trading two technology stocks while working at Galleon. He has pleaded not guilty, although in May prosecutors asked the judge overseeing the case for more time "to facilitate plea discussions."

But the now 11-day old shutdown is keeping them from the evidence prosecutors need: With the Department of Justice having furloughed all non-essential staff members, they do not currently have access to evidence held electronically at Justice facilities in Virginia, Bloomberg News reports.

Rengan Rajartnam returned to the U.S. from his home in Brazil to face the charges. He is currently free on $1 million bail.

From the current issue of

We are accustomed to splitting trading into technical and fundamental buckets. Both involve crunching data; one set includes market fundamentals and the other pure price data. Alternative data is a third bucket that is gaining traction.